Sometimes when the day feels too long,
When I am driving home
alone in traffic,
The heat and humidity so thick in the air
I can feel it blanketing around me,
Can taste the water droplets
hanging in the atmosphere,
When my mind is tired and allowed to wander,
Sometimes, unbidden,
I turn up back at that moment,
Begging you to stay.
There was a time
When the image of that memory
Would stop me dead in my tracks,
Knock the wind out of my chest,
To my knees, to the ground,
Send me reeling for days afterward.
But one day, my dear,
The thoughts came,
But I did not despair.
Rabid, seething,
I asked the universe what I should have asked you:
How fucking dare you?
When you knew me
I was young, unsure,
Afraid.
And you, you coward,
Strung me along like a childhood keepsake,
Demanded apologies you did not deserve
For wrongdoings I did not commit.
So know now
That when you come strolling back,
Telling me how good I look
How well I'm doing,
I already know these things, deep in my bones.
You could not break me.
I am a queen, a warrior, a masterpiece,
A woman.
I will stop you dead in your tracks,
knock the wind from your chest
and send you reeling.
When I am driving home
alone in traffic,
The heat and humidity so thick in the air
I can feel it blanketing around me,
Can taste the water droplets
hanging in the atmosphere,
When my mind is tired and allowed to wander,
Sometimes, unbidden,
I turn up back at that moment,
Begging you to stay.
There was a time
When the image of that memory
Would stop me dead in my tracks,
Knock the wind out of my chest,
To my knees, to the ground,
Send me reeling for days afterward.
But one day, my dear,
The thoughts came,
But I did not despair.
Rabid, seething,
I asked the universe what I should have asked you:
How fucking dare you?
When you knew me
I was young, unsure,
Afraid.
And you, you coward,
Strung me along like a childhood keepsake,
Demanded apologies you did not deserve
For wrongdoings I did not commit.
So know now
That when you come strolling back,
Telling me how good I look
How well I'm doing,
I already know these things, deep in my bones.
You could not break me.
I am a queen, a warrior, a masterpiece,
A woman.
I will stop you dead in your tracks,
knock the wind from your chest
and send you reeling.